Goodbye closed beta

I’m looking out my window at the brownstones of Fort Greene thinking how beautiful the weather is today, and how great it’d be to take a run up to Prospect Park, but before that I’ve got a few really exciting items on my to do list.

The view out my window

1) Write Smashrun’s inaugural blog post –  Introduce yourself, describe our new release and what’s in the works.

This one shouldn’t take too long to take care of…

Hi, I’m Chris, and I’m a designer, developer, and part of the small team responsible for Smashrun.  This blog is part of our latest release, which brings our closed beta to an end, and clears the decks for our official launch. Our new home page has some shiny new features:  a snazzy video (nice job Jacklyn!), some quotes we solicited from users (thanks for the compliments!), and an about section with a new FAQ and some info about why and how Smashrun came to be, and some details about the team (Jacklyn, Steve, and I).

None of that is terribly exciting for you if you’re already a regular user, but it’ll help make sure you’re in good company. What’s more exciting is that we’ve knocked out a bunch of bugs, and improved the reliability of the Nike import. We’ve also been working on creating another 40 badges. There’s a nice mix of easy and challenging ones, we’re going to shoot for having these out to you sometime next month.

2) Submit finished application to Startup Chile

We’re applying to Startup Chile. The Chilean government is sponsoring a unique program whereby select startups will be given a $40,000 grant to participate in a 6 month entrepreneurial exchange in Santiago, Chile. The opportunity is pretty incredible so we’re going to give it a shot.

3) Launch new homepage

If you’re reading this then that one’s done.

3) Go for my 18th consecutive run day in a row.

I’m shooting to be the first to earn the 50/50 badge.  Last time I was in the 30s when I got the flu and threw off my schedule, but this time I’m going strong. You can track my progress on my run page. And sometime in the near future we’ll add some social features, so you can encourage me/give me a hard time when I miss a day.

 

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